Dr. Ashley Bosa and visiting students, Chenqiang Liu and Harvey Jing, from Oregon State University, prepped and shipped 2000 surveys to communities around Ada County, Idaho, and Ashland and Talent, Oregon. With the help of several grad students, the team was able to put together the packets in just two days.
These surveys will assess residents’ expected evacuation preparations (e.g., collecting belongings, securing the home) and the time they expect it will take to complete these preparations (evacuation preparation time). We will also assess their expected evacuation logistics such as the number of vehicles, route choice, destination choice, and expected accommodations (peer’s home; hotel/motel; public shelter).
The data from these surveys will be integrated into a interdisciplinary agent-based wildfire evacuation model, which will be used to track different agents (individuals or households) as they evacuate, and give more accurate Evacuation Time Estimate (ETE) components, helping emergency response teams better plan evacuations and identify effective strategies for overcoming wildfire evacuation impediments.